REVIEW 644: TUMBBAD

When I was a child I used to imagine
that there is a ghost in every commode, monsters under the bed, and that
if you looked hard enough into the inky black night, especially up in the
mountains, you would see the spectre of a white man from the colonial era about
whom I had heard from an older relative (although she said the spirit descends from a ceiling calling out the words “Van
Ross I’m coming”).

There is no foreigner among the
primary playersin Tumbbad. What we
have instead is a wizened and diseased Indian grandmother, a frightened mother
and two little children. When we meet them somewhere in rural Maharashtra about
three decades before Independence, the mother is nursing the old woman while
the kids puzzle over the mysterious goings-on in the shadowy innards of their
decrepit habitation. They know that their parent is terrified of something, but
they do not know for sure what it is. Looming in the background of their lives
is a massive ancestral dwelling in the village of Tumbbad and a treasure they are not allowed to mention.

The air is ominous, and
everything that follows serves to build up the sense of unease that settles in
with the first shot. India wins her freedom from the British and the older son
grows into a man (played by Ship of Theseus and Simran’s Sohum Shah)
still burning with curiosity about the fate that befell his family when he was
a child and what that treasure could do for him.

As someone who derives immense
masochistic pleasure from getting startled by the horror genre, I have to
confess I draw the line at zombie flicks and other works that do not rest on
intelligent mind games but seek to creep us out with oozing pustules, crumbling
monsters and festering wounds. I therefore settled into watching Tumbbad with considerable trepidation
from the moment I saw an introductory shot of a decaying foot. Yet, curiously
enough, although this film does have a fair share of bloodied and rotting
bodies, there is nothing gory or visually repulsive about it. In fact, it
soon becomes clear that director Rahi Anil Barve is not aiming at repelling the
audience as much as leaving us spooked out and fascinated. DoP Pankaj Kumar (Ship of Theseus, Haider) evidently shares his vision since he shoots
the film’s creaturescleverly,
mostly in dim settings and without allowing his camera to stare at them for
long,working far more on the power of suggestion than the spoonfed
visual and greatly complemented by the sound – surprisingly understated for
this genre – and production design.

Equally surprisingly understated
are the performances of this excellent cast. Shah leads the charge, displaying
his versatility by comfortably combining an alluring handsomeness with the
slimy aspect of his character, in a role far removed from his niceness as the
leading lady’s beau in Simran.

Although Tumbbad is not a big film in conventional terms, in the sense that
it features no superstars and is not flashy, it has certainly been mounted on a
lavish scale. Kumar’s cinematography contributes to the feeling of largeness,
as does the art design. In terms of its images, it has been laid out like a
triptych, with Segment 1 of the canvas dominated by the hero’s living quarters
which gradually metamorphose from a humble home into a semi-luxe Raja Ravi
Varma painting; the second are the vast misty landscapes he traverses (which
reminded me of the magnificence of Ship
of Theseus); and third, a mysterious blood red arena.

Produced by Sohum Shah himself in
association with Anand L. “Tanu Weds Manu” Rai, Tumbbad is written by Mitesh
Shah, Adesh Prasad, Barve himself and Ship of Theseus’ director Anand Gandhi. The credits tell us that it has been
inspired by the works of the late Marathi horror specialist Narayan Dharap. The
end result of this collaboration is a somewhat indefinable film. Greed is the
overriding theme. On the face of it, it is a horror flick with a folksy feel, a
sort of fantastical desi retelling of
The Goose That Laid The Golden Eggs.
Yet when at one point the leading man goes hunting for hidden gems, he enters
what appears to be the pulsating insides of an orifice in a human body, giving Tumbbad its allegorical resonance. Is he
in a cave or within the mind of another being or...? It could be one or more of
many options.

The joy of watching Tumbbad comes from the fact that Barve
and his co-writers offer no answers, making this a delightfully intriguing
film.

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About Me

Anna MM Vetticad is an award-winning journalist, journalism teacher and author of the critically acclaimed bestseller The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic, an overview of the Hindi film industry presented through an account of a year in which she watched every single Bollywood film released in India’s National Capital Region. A journalist since 1994, she has worked with India Today, The Indian Express and Headlines Today. At HT she hosted her own interview show Star Trek which drew all India’s eminent entertainment personalities. While Anna has spent most of her career as a behind-the-scenes editorial person, she has also reported on most major Indian entertainment and lifestyle events and several international ones including Cannes and the Oscars, in addition to being the film critic for Headlines Today. She is currently reporting and writing for multiple publications on cinema and social issues with a focus on gender concerns. The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic is available on amazon.com, ebay.in, flipkart.com, ombooksinternational.com, ombooks.com, infibeam.com, homeshop18.com and dialabook.in among other websites, and in stores across India. Twitter: @annavetticad